Thean Hou Temple - Malaysia’s Most Visually Impressive Temple

27 September, 2009Sunday

The Chinese Thean Hou Temple is apparently one of the most visually impressive in Malaysia and was built by the Hainanese community living in Kuala Lumpur. It's dedicated to the Heavenly Mother, Thean Hou and her statue takes centre stage in the main hall.

Featuring six-tiers, this Chinese temple is located on a hill overlooking Jalan Syed Putra and was officially opened in 1989. There are a couple of ways to get there and we took the monorail to Tun Sambanthan station, which resulted in a half hour walk and then a climb up the hill (via a road). We probably could have taken a taxi, though nothing beats the exercise.

After we reached the gate (above), we had a look around the grounds, which included a few water features and brightly coloured statues of the twelve animals, before exploring the main temple.

The temple architecture has elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism and represents a successful combination of modern architectural techniques and authentic traditional design. There are imposing pillars, spectacular roofs, ornate carvings and intricate embellishments.

As we were beginning our walk around, the sky threatened to pour and as we took cover, the rain came down in spades. At this point, we managed to get to the upper levels of the temple, where we were marooned for a short while.

From our upper vantage point, we could see the prayer hall.

The rain (see video below) was pretty intense and since we were atop a hill, we could see that the area for a few miles around was covered with a thick blanket of mist.

However, the rain then went as fast as it had come and we continued our tour through the dampened tiers.

We eventually made our way back down to the ground level where we got a quick bite to eat at the canteen and then checked out the souvenir stalls before we left.